Knox County Survival
by J0SH-H
Summary: Ground Zero, the Undead epidemic. The journal entries of one man as he survives, day by day, in a city filled with the dead. Action heavy and serious. No characters connected to The Walking Dead.
1. Chapter 1

March 14th, 6 pm

Ate my last can of food today. Been eating dog food the past week. Tried mixing the last package of beef ramen with it. Threw it out after choking down half the sludge. Now, wish I'd kept it. The chicken and vegetables Fido Feast wasn't so bad, but I'm sure that "Beef Delight" I just swallowed down is more closely related to My Little Pony than any cow I've ever met.

I have to get out of this house. Was really caught with my pants down, here. Better than the dorm, but whoever owned this place thought too highly of their pets and not highly enough of disaster preparedenss. Didn't they ever watch those 'in case of earthquake' videos they showed in grade school? Doggy sweaters aplenty, but not a single gauze bandage in the whole place. Even my buddies at the university had a jug or two of water and a flashlight. These guys have a set of glow in the dark collars for one 'Pooky' and a Brite Lite touch lamp.

The neighbor's place will be better. Judging by the outdoor equipment peaking out of the garage, the man of the house may have even been a hunter. Need to close that garage door when I get over and check it out.

March 16th, 8 pm

Had no idea how good stale corn flakes taste when you're this hungry. I found a couple dusty past date travel packs in the back of the cupboard, next to the baking soda and cooking sherry. I wonder if I can live off baking soda? As the good Lord said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every box of Arm and Hammer during the undead uprising."

There's the corn flakes, the sherry, and not much else to take. Well, can't forget the mountain of pharmaceuticals. Was surprised they prescribed Prozac to canines, but a dog has every right to be as neurotic as it's pill popping owners. Ms. Baker had four separate prescriptions to different sleep aids, and Mr. Baker's daily doses of panic attack beta blockers would make me as glassy eyed as the stumbling citizens moaning outside.

Good thing they didn't have anything really valuable and heavy. It's not like I could carry a shotgun, gallons of gas, and 2x4's at the same time. Seen people try to do that before. Sure way to die.

Hopefully the basement will turn up a better weapon. All I've got now is a hammer, which does well to pound some nails but doesn't have much range. A nice sharp ax would be nice right now. Maybe the neighbor was a fireman as well as a hunter?

Hope springs eternal.

March 17th, 5:30 pm

Found my new and improved weapon. Like always, it's right under my nose, and like always, dangerous to get to. There's a baseball bat hiding in the back yard, stuck like the Sword of Excalibur in a patch of weeds. The thing brings me back to the good old days before I hit puberty, when a bat and Mrs. Seymour's crab apples gave me unlimited chance to pelt Milo, Mrs. Seymour's mean old tomcat. Hopefully I still have the touch with a wooden slugger. Heading out to grab it now. Wish Eddie was here. That would make this easier. I can hear moans on the wind.

March 17th, 8:30pm

Damn, but that was close. I opened up the back porch door, super-quiet, and tip toed out to the bat. So far, so good. Picked up the bat, and managed to pivot onto one of Pooky's useless chew toys. That, of course, clued in the Baker's very dead next door neighbor, who was in the yard next to me. The rotting corpse turned it's head, and I had to duck down into the stupid weeds to keep out of sight. It hadn't moaned yet, so I thought I was safe.

I wasn't.

It shuffled toward the white picket fence- only thing between me and it. I did what any sensible idiot would do. Crawled right up to the fence. When it got within swing range, I popped up and knocked it's brain loose with a grand slam. The overripe neck snapped, and that was the end of our neighborly conversation.

The bat should do just fine for me.

Heading out tomorrow morn. Plan to pop one of Ms. Baker's finest sleep aids and down the last of the cooking sherry to get a good night's sleep. On an empty stomach, odds are good I'll be hung over tomorrow morning, but I'll chance it. There aren't many of them out there, but the moans are grinding my nerves raw. It's really getting to me. Shows I wasn't made for this. I got kicked out of cub scouts on account of always paying more attention to the Oreos and juice boxes we got at the end of the meeting than the survival lessons during.

Man, I wish I had a Oreo right now...

March 18th, 10:00 AM

Definitely hung over. Still hungry. Very screwed.

This house is empty. All that outdoor equipment? Just fishing gear. Nary a shotgun, rifle, or even bow and arrow. And closing the garage to find that out nearly got me killed.

I had already made it from the Baker's to here. I had set my backpack next to the master bedroom. In celebration, I had eaten the last mini box of cereal. Then I returned downstairs to enter the garage.

The big aluminum door was three quartes closed when I entered. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized that the mountain of fishing gear was just that. Not one bullet in sight. Of course, in my frustration, I stopped paying attention to the half open door, but the walker hadn't. It was bad idea to sigh, and an even worse idea to kick a fishing pole. How was I to know that a walker had been shuffling toward the garage already? How was I to know that walkers still have the (rotted) brain capacity to crouch and crawl?

By the time I realized that one of them was inside the fisher's garage with me, it was four feet away, reaching out with it's broken fingernails.

I only turned when it tripped over the former owner's waders, sending it to the floor like the uncoordinated meat sack it is. Scared the hell outta me. Went overboard, turning it's head into a thick stain on the concrete.

It was all I could do to not make another stain, this one down my jeans.

Following a quick dose of Mr. Baker's Propranolol panic attack meds, I checked out the rest of this damn house.

Nothing. Now what am I going to do?

March 19 6:00 PM

I've gotta get out of here. The more I look at this house, the more I realize I'm not the first one to make my way through it. The previous squatter was neater than me, but there is no way Mr. Fisherman would have cleared out every nook and cranny of any foodlike substance. Not even a can of cream of mushroom soup to be had. Just isn't natural.

As I look out the upstairs window, I realize that this neighborhood will be my graveyard, if I let it be. The problem is, I don't know where to go. I made it here under cover of night last time, and Eddie was the one who knew the area. But I can't think about him. He's gone.

Last I heard, all of Knox was under quarantine. I'd rather not set off into the picket line and get myself shot to pieces by the quarantine.

Can't even see where I'm at, have no real idea where I can go. I need to get my bearings. And it looks like the only place taller than the top of the uniform two story houses is in the front yard.

Mr Fisherman must have had a kid. Must have even been a good Dad. With that huge oak out front, who could have refused their son? A five story tree, a treefort, and even a kid sized wooden ladder. That should elevate me just fine above this muck.

March 19th 4:30 PM

Learned two things today. First, a fourth grader's tree fort is too small for a six foot five man. Second, every plan I make seems doomed by Murphy's law.

It was going all going to work perfect. Only two meatsacks in the front yard. Only one between me and the tree fort. Open the door, pop the the moaner one to the skull, and scramble across the wet grass to the tree.

So what, I told myself, if the other moaner saw me? I would only be a minute up to the top of the tree and a minute back down. Hardly enough time to worry about anything other than the great view up top. Right?

If only. I was halfway up the fort's ladder when my foot slipped on one of the rungs. The rung my left hand was on, suddenly holding more weight cracked, all loud like. That left me with one hand hold and a shin just in claw reach of the other moaner, who had taken a keen interest in the flailing foot hanging in front of him.

I kicked the corpse's hand away and made it the rest of the way up the tree, to the fort. Undaunted, the walker just kept right on moaning, which quickly drew the rest the undead in the cul de sac.

I now have a swarm of twenty-five of Muldraugh's concerned citizens all vying for their own little piece of me. My bat fell out of my pack and sits underneath their feet. The backpack is still full of meds and completely empty of food. I still have this journal and a pen, for what it's worth.

I guess I did learn one other thing today. The tree has a great view- of even more suburban hell, each with proud dead homeowners meandering down the streets, toward my tree.

March 20th, 9:48 am

Shit. Shit shit shit. I don't know what's worse. Sitting in this cramped playroom, the ever increasing mass of open mouths below me, or the the Mexican gang-banger rap.

Spent the night up here. Didn't really have a choice, given that the entire homeowner's association is heading this way. Must be a hundred of them closing in. I don't dare move. Don't want to give the slavering meatsacks any more incentive to pile on top of one another and drag me down. Their moaning and groaning is seriously getting to me. It's like listening to a sea filled with piranhas, every hour bringing the tide lapping closer to my toes.

I could've dosed myself some more of Mrs. Baker's never ending supply of sleep aids, but I don't think they would've helped. Besides, the thought of rolling over in my sleep, out of the fort and into the crowd of moaners scared scared me stiff. If my roommate had made it here alive, we could've taken the night in shifts. 'Course, Eddie's moaner munchies now, so that's a no go. I didn't think I could get more keyed up, until I heard the music start up about fifteen minutes ago.

I can see the car where the Latino bass is blasting from now. A huge black suburban, complete with tinted windows and drive-by ready moonroof, making it's way into the neighborhood.

March 20th, 10:03 am

Man, I am so screwed. That monstrous vehicle just blew past. I was peaking out when they did. If the huge crowd of meatsacks isn't enough of a giveaway that something living is stuck up here, my bright blonde head would do the trick.

That suburban's got some woofers. No idea what they say in those songs, but it's gangland execution type music. Everyone I know that listens to these D-grade tracks was either a chubby twelve year old Latino getting in touch with his culture or one of the serious gang bangers who hung on the side streets. Which of those would've had the guns, guts, and cajones to survive? Not the one who studied trigonometry, I can tell you that.

I don't know what even an hombre like that would be doing here. This suburb is known for it's Christmas displays more than drug wars. If they're setting down in the neighborhood, I might as well kill myself right now. Those types don't play nice.

They're going to kill me. So dead.

March 20th, 11:16 am

The truck drove real slow when it came by this time. I don't know what they're playing at. Probably trying to see if someone was stupid enough to actually think that a treehouse could protect them. 'Course, it can't. Can't protect me from the moaners. Can't protect me from 9mm slugs, either.

I hoped that that I would make it to the end of this journal, maybe even fill another. Now it looks like I won't make it to the end of the page.

March 23rd, 4:00 pm

That didn't go as expected. Last time I wrote, I was ready to kiss the world goodbye.

The suburban blasting the rap drove by twice more, slower each time. I was too terrified out of my mind to realize that didn't make a lick of sense.

The last time it passed, almost all the moaners followed. Turns out they like the thought of Mexican food just as much as much as American. There were only five or six stragglers, stuck on fences or tripping over their own broken feet in the yard below.

I didn't notice this. My thoughts had turned to my brother and parents. They're all gone, probably. Realized that I'd be following them soon enough. Tried to remember the sinner's prayer. Only got halfway. Knowing I was the last DeWitt on the face of the planet hadn't really gotten to me until that moment, when I realized that taking a full bottle of Mr. Baker's happy meds would put an end to our family line. Holding that orange bottle, I almost did it.

Then I heard a tinny bell ring under the distant thump of angry Latinos.

It wasn't an alarm clock bell, or a kitchen timer bell. When I peaked up from my tree, I found out that the bell was attached to vanilla creme handlebars. Attached to the bars was a picnic basket with an ancient dog poking out. Behind the dog followed the rest of a creme two seater bicycle. On the front seat of the bicycle was a grizzled, pot bellied old man, the kind of guy who had seen the Tet Offensive and too many cheap beers in his long passed hay-day.

The dog barked at me.

The owner had by then gotten off the bike, and pulled out a mean sawed off shotgun from his rucksack. He blasted one of the meatsacks face away, and blasted the guts out backwards from another.

I had scrambled down, picked up my thankfully unbroken slugger and dispatched another of the moaners. It was about then the insanity of the situation hit me.

I wondered if I'd actually taken the meds, and this was some sort of drug induced hallucination. My brother told me once about trying LSD. It sounded similar to this.

The man yelled something at me, then motioned to the second seat of the bicycle. The dog barked at me again, then at one of the walkers who was heading toward the cycle. It's head disappeared in a blood mist, and I decided to get onto the back of the bike and go with this man, his dog, and his shotgun.

Now I sit at the man's campfire. The mangy dog, unholy union of a schnauzer and a bulldog, yawns indulgently. The man scratches the dog's belly, and yawns himself. My savior's name is Dave Calhoun. Crazy Old Man Dave.


	2. Chapter 3

Diced canned tomatoes. Hot, condensed chicken broth. Freeze dried salami. All cooked together into a thick, salty stew amended with rice and bow tie noodles. What do you have when you put it all together? The most delicious thing I've eaten in my life. Courtesy of the rumpled vet sitting across from me.

You see, that old man was smart enough to stockpile. He was smart enough to get outta dodge when the National Guard unit came in. And he was smart enough to save me from my idiotic predicament. He even had the bright idea to camp out near Spedwater River so he could draw water whenever he needed. He does not, however, quite realize the oddity of talking to your dog as if she cares what you're saying. I admit, she's a nice dog, and she must know her way around this strange world. She's surviving better than me, at least.

When I asked Dave how he knew I was in that damn tree, his answer went something like: "Boy, you need to realize that this world ain't the world you're used to. Guns aren't the best, tanks aren't the best, and sure as shit trucks ain't the best for this world. Now, Dead Ed, ain't your typical Charlie. Can't see real good any more, but can hear pretty good. Guess he ain't got messy body noises like breathing to keep him distracted. So these goners, they just follow their ears. That's why I hitched a ride in that shit-on-wheels suburban."

"Goners likes loud noises. And anymore, loud noises are only caused by people, you an' me and other live folks. I been tracking the whereabouts of Ed and his friends, and when they all started to move your way, I followed. See, I figure they'd lead me right to some poor sap," he glances at me from across the embers, "some poor sap that got hisself stuck in a tree like a kitten, what couldn't figure how to get down."

"Got their interest with that there truck, then come on back with a silent ride. This ride," he wheezes, patting the tandem cycle with a loving hand.

The codger is nutty as a wheezing madhouse. Following a pack of moaners? On a bicycle? I may have been the one up a tree, but his mind's the one in free fall. And now I'm sitting here with him, in his camp, eating his food.

Figures.

The normal ones, fit for the world of insurance rates and alarm clocks and high priced 'luxury toilet paper' are gone. Now, only the crazies and the dead are left. And Daisy, who eyes me, asking for some of that salami.

Dave woke me early. Right now he's gearing up- putting on his rumpled Army jacket, slinging up that shotgun, counting out his shells. He doesn't look too good. Wheezes a bit, red eyes. Something's up with him. Don't want to ask what. Not sure I want the answer.

He tells me that we're "going on recon." I ask why recon has to happen at five in the morning, and he says that's when, as he calls them, the goners can be "caught unawares."

The man is a fruit cake. Still, he seems to know what he's talking about. Certainly surviving better than I was. We're set up now in a lumber yard on the edge of town, across the Spedwater and fields from housing or other clusters of shambling dead. Dave set up a tarp next to a block of railroad ties in the center.

Right now I'm drinking instant coffee from the tin camping pot he warmed up before I woke. That dog's attacking it's left leg like it's got fleas. Hope I don't get them. Can't tell if Dave has them or not.

A few moaners passed by last night, as we sat in the center of the fenced in clearing, surrounded by obscuring rows of railroad ties. When I jumped up, slugger in hand, the old man swatted me and told me to calm down. The fire was banked low and he growled that they wouldn't be attracted to us if they didn't see us and couldn't hear us. Told me it was Pleiku all over again. Whatever that means.

The old man mutters to himself sometimes. Stuff like "get the stuff or lose my edge. That's what I always say." He keeps checking his pockets, as if missing something he normally has.

When I ask him about his mutt, he gives me the hardest look I've seen yet from the man. "Daisy will not be a problem. I trained her long time past for quiet. She'll only bark when Dead Ed's ready to take his claws to my back. She's been waiting for this for a long time. Right, Daze?" He asks, absently scratching the dog's ear.

Gotta admit, she only whined quietly when the moaner rolled past last night. I was the one who panicked, not her. And it's clear Dave's got an oddly strong attachment to it. Stronger than he has to me right now, no doubt.

Looks like he's ready to go. He hands me my bat, which gained several galvanized additions this morning. The nails glint dully in predawn light. "Let's just say it was due for an upgrade. You're going to earn your keep today, buddy-boy."

7/24 8:30

Dave finally explained his plan. Like everything else to do with him, it's cockeyed. "What I need is a distraction. Aint many of 'em out here this far from the city center. They all was drawn like maggots to roadkill by the burning and sirens and general hubbub during the last fighting down there. All's that's here is the stragglers. Staked it out once afore, and most have broken legs or got stuck on fences or something elsewise to keep 'em around."

"We can clear them out real easy. Most of 'em won't even see us, if we're good and fast- but it'll take two. I aint what I once was, what with this padding I got now," he adds, his 'padding' pressing against the handlebars, "but I can work an axe handle well enough."

We turn a bend, slow, and finally hop off. Dave looked over his shoulder and informed me that "the most important thing is to not get surrounded. Never, ever get surrounded."

By the end of the conversation, we'd made it to where we lay now. We're on the very far edge of a small rise, across a field from a gas station and drug store. There are a fair number of moaners out their, standing listlessly. They look lost, just staring at the clouds or the tall grass waving in the wind.

He pats his obedient mutt's head, while she tries to fall asleep. That dog's taken to this horrific world like chimps to jungle gyms. Dave says we'll scope out the place, then move in. When I ask him what for, his eyes gleam and he answers, "that store. That store's got the stuff. We'll stake the place out for a time, then head in." Worrisome, that my only ally will risk my life for Oxycoton.

7/24 10:09am

This is one of the first moments in the entire past few weeks I haven't been worried, on edge, hungry, or hunted. As I lay in the tall grass, Dave glancing through binocs and muttering quietly to himself, I can't help but think about Rob. Been putting it off long enough.

He's is in my dreams sometimes, like a haunting ghost. Shouldn't feel bad, but some part does. Shit. How couldn't I? He was my friend. Good roommate. Always cleaned his dishes, never partied. Bit of a slow poke, but does that mean what happened to him is A-OK? Since when does being slow to come round to an idea mean you deserve to die?

I couldn't help him. Sure as hell can't help him now. Nothing to be done about it. He's probably cinders and ash now. If not, then I guess he's gone just the same. Saw him scratched. You don't always turn, but it doesn't matter. He was set to die one way or another.

Feel like I should say something nice about him, like you're supposed to do at a funeral. So, I'll write this: He was a nice guy, a great roommate, and a good friend. But he was slow.

I'll learn his lesson. Don't go slow. Don't slow down. Not for anything.

Dave just tapped me on the shoulder. It's go time.

7/24 6:30pm

What a rush. Here's how it went down.

It started off directly enough. Dave showed me a few hand signals so we'd be able to communicate without words. Knew some of it from movies, pretty simple stuff. Fist up to stop, point to show where to go, patting your head to show who would be the distraction (like I want that job).

We made a beeline through a fallen part of the chainlink fence. Dave had already coached me on this. We'd run quick and quiet until a moaner saw us, then run to it and pop it fast. Dave had left, I had right. We would make a beeline to the door of the WalGreens, dropping any that saw us, unless a pack came about.

The newly fanged bat worked like a charm. If a goner saw me and raised it's arms toward me, I could brush aside the grasping hands with the smooth end. When I had an open shot at the head or neck, the wicked nails penetrated skull straight through to brain matter. Much less force necessary to kill the brain that way, while still having good reach and pushback.

Quickly enough, we made it to the store. Dave pushed open the unpowered automatic door, and we headed inside. He paused, wheezing for breath, "gotta get my meds." I made to head in a separate direction from my overweight companion, but he swatted at me. "What the hell d'you think you're doing? You want to skedaddle off to find moisturizer and have the damn stockboy eat your back? Never go anywhere on your lonesome. Do that, we both die... Damn civvies."

I wanted to tell him I'd been doing just fine for weeks without him. However, it's hard to be believed when you were the one who was stuck in a tree, not the other guy. So, I nodded, and we set off down aisle 1, toward the pharmacy in the back.

Dave and I worked down the row without incident until one a moaner turned out to have a friend. Dave sliced straight through the neck of the obvious one- a tattered and worn businessman. However, Dave didn't see his business partner, a moaner that, for whatever reason, didn't have use of it's legs. Not seeing it, Dave actually stepped into it's reach. Despite being dead, those things have a hellofa grip, and Dave almost went down when the legless one grabbed his ankle. He yelled, and I spun. I saw it and smashed it's arm, forcing it to release it's grip from Dave. He had by then brung up his shotgun, pointed it in the general direction of the pitiful creature, and blasted away, both barrels.

Something I did not realize before the world went hellish is the actual volume of a weapon. When I watched movies, super spies and their arch enemies would carry on witty conversations while blasting at each other. Soldiers would mow down half a forest to kill an alien, but still be able to hear the crack of a twig that meant it was actually behind them.

As Dave would say, all that is "God damned Horse Shit." Dave tells me now, sitting at the campfire, that a single shotgun round sounds off at "a hundred fifty decibels, or whatever they call it." That, he assures me, is louder than a jet taking off.

Both barrels would be even louder.

I can't put words to the volume. Scared the ever loving religion out of me. I jumped back, hit the aisle behind me, and knocked the entire shelf backward. It fell into aisle 2, which in turn hit aisle 3, and so on. This went on for about thirty seconds. As Aisle 15 collapsed into the far wall, clattering heavily, I looked to Dave, then the fallen shelves, then the door. A moaner in the parking lot turned toward the building, then another. Dave stared at me. More to himself than me, he muttered something. My ears were ringing for hours afterwards (still are, in fact), but it looked a lot like his mouth formed the phrase "oh shit." We had just rung the bell for every one of Dead Ed's friends that dinner was served.

7/24 6:30pm, cont.

Surprisingly, Dave didn't scream at me, or call me a 'damn civvie' again. The old man just helped me up, then dashed toward the back of the store, and the pharmacy-chemist section.

It was furthest from grimy windows and therefore hidden by dark shadow. Dave had reloaded the shotgun, but slung it at his back. Seems that he didn't savor the thought of ringing the dinner bell again. There was a dead labcoated woman there, but she must not have turned, or had the forethought to imbibe her own product. Either way, she didn't bother us.

I shoveled random prescriptions, from codeine to fish oil meds into the mouth of my backpack. I didn't care much what we had. Dave, however, started hunting.

I had always suspected the man had some sort of addiction. It would certainly have explained some things. His habit of muttering to himself, his obsession with getting these drugs, the way he treated his dog, his nervous tics.

He crowed in triumph, and pulled three blister-pack sealed inhalers from a recessed shelf. "Hot damn! They really did have my prescription in!" Turns out, my suspicions have been completely wrong.

Dave sits across from me now and tells me that, when it all hit the fan, he'd ordered the inhalers from that Walgreens, but had "bugged out to to the sticks" before they'd called him.

Given Dave had what he needed and my bag was overflowing with even more jangling orange bottles, we turned to head out, and that's when we saw them.

A cross section of Amercian life were bursting through the doors. Soccer moms, staid old ladies, a pair of joggers, and a decaying weight lifter headed toward us. Their apparent confusion and docility was gone; it was replaced by a slackjawed determination to add us to their tableau of horror.

I turned to Dave, but he had already lurched over the counter, shoving his prized possessions into his own pack. Asking him, "what do we do now," I must have yelled. Dave gave me the evil eye before pointing, as if I was an idiot, toward the stockroom exit, which he was already gimping toward.

The explosion in my eardrums was becoming less deafening by the time we made it to the back door. Dave paused, hands on his knees, coughing. I tore open a blister pack and he grabbed the metal cylinder, taking a deep puff. He paused for a moment, then exhaled. Beneath the retreating thunder of gun noise still echoing in my head, I heard him mutter "that's more like it."

The moaners were halfway across the scattered shelves, falling and jostling one another in their mindless journey to my pumping heart. Determined to keep it working, I kicked the swinging door open, which immediately rebounded back toward me, propelled forward by the body weight of a half-eviscerated clerk who was heading our way.

Dave brought his barrel to bare, ready to make me permanently deaf. I screamed incoherently, jumped forward into his sights and slammed the dripping stockboy onto the ground. Screaming in fear for my ears and overall wellbeing, I slammed the bat down into the squirming moaner's nose, penetrating through to frontal lobe.

This time Dave did scream "Damn idiot civ!", but he was already moving forward, my foolish moment of aggression already forgotten. He burst out the back door, slammed a goner in the head with the stock of his gun, blasted another's skull to jellied confetti, and kept on running.

I followed, glad the open environment absorbed the geyser of sound better than reverberant aluminum shelves. Most of the undead had made their way toward the front entrance, and we only snagged against a single crawler on the top of the hill, it's back legs a mess of broken bone.

Daisy was fired up, whining incessantly the moment Dave got in sight. He dumped her in the basket and I jumped on. I don't think I've paddled faster in my life, that damn dog yapping the whole way back.

The sun is now setting on our fenced in safe area. Dave is turning the precious medical inhaler over and over in his hands. "Just wasn't much good without my second wind," he says. "They say the most important thing in a survival situation is shelter and a gun. That's God Damn Horse Shit," he states, smiling. He glances at Daisy and adds, "begging your pardon, Ms. Daisy. Your health, now that's important. Could live in Buckingham Palace itself and wouldn't matter if you caught death of a cold for yourself."

Daisy yawns and grins a doggie grin. She's just happy to be home.

And you know what? So am I.


	3. Chapter 4

7/26 3:44pm

Haven't heard a working radio for weeks.

It's amazing how much the noise you never think about becomes ingrained into your life. After the first days of chaos were over, I couldn't get over how quiet it was. Sitting, holed up, starving, scared to so much as peek out a window, that constant quiet really got to me. No cell phones, no radios, no iPods, no traffic. The give and take of constant noise- constant activity- was gone. Wind blowing through the trees is as loud as it gets around here anymore. Except, of course, for the reedy breaths of the undead.

The low crackle and static of an AM radio, then, was understandably not what I expected when I woke up. I guess, honestly, I should have expected it. What God fearing survivalist nutjob would ever leave the house without a working solar powered survival AM-FM-Distress Band Civil Alert Radio? Some shmuck like me might, yes, but not the old man.

He explained that, what with all the crap weather we'd been having, solar powered is as good as unpowered most days. "Only get two or three minutes of uptime on it. Not caught a signal yet. Still, better than nothing," Dave told me, as he slowly dialed up and down the AM tuner.

It came as a shock to even him when the squelching and scratching resolved itself, for a few blessed seconds, into a distinguishable voice. Dave lost it almost the moment he realized it was there, and scrambled to find it again. He pinned the dial back and forth, between 1800 and 1805, slower and slower, trying to pick up the thread. No joy.

The rest of the day was spent in a gloom by both of us. Situated in a deep valley surounded by mountains on every side means that radio signals have a hard time getting to Muldraugh. It gets better on the north end of the valley, which leads to the widest pass out, and to Baker, closest habitation to us.

The old man and I spent the rest of the day in a gloom, turning over and over again what it all means. By this afternoon, we had come to the same conclusion.

We need to know what's going on in the outside world. Last either of us heard, the valley had been blockaded. Shoot on sight is an accurate description of military-resident relations, and the north pass is surely one of the areas where that order has been carried out more than once. Regardless, we need to go up there. Not far from here, only about a five minute drive. Take longer sneaking, but very doable.

And we're heading out. Now.

7/26 6:46pm

At the picket line now. The jarheads on the other side are jumpy as a cat on coke. Not good.

We left behind the tandem and Daisy for this one. The inhaler makes it dramatically easier for the old man to get by on foot, and I suggested that, no matter how quiet the ride, we would have to abandon it later on. Moaners may have decayed eyesight, but it's a fair bet that the guys with guns don't.

Dave agreed grudgingly. This wasn't his idea of a picnic, and I can understand why. He has some serious attachment for the dog, and leaving behind the transport that makes us faster than the moaners takes away one of our biggest advantages.

The trip up was mercifully quiet. Leapfrogging forward, Dave's ax and my bat took down any locals before they had a chance to raise the alarm. It was surreal, to creep through neighborhoods like a thief, and see an abandonded tricycle on the corner, or a garden in the yard, abandonded mid-planting. Like we're ghosts, living in a world forgotten by everyone else.

That silence gets to me. Makes me feel like a stranger walking through the ruins of lives. Then a battered panama hat rises up from the ground, attached to a decaying body. Wet, rotting gardening gloves rise, and Dave slices straight through it's neck, sending it toppling down.

When we do this, it's like we're trespassing on the last moments of those people's lives, rusted into place. Rotting, dead, and hopeless, but still their's, not ours.

That kind of place is for the goners, not us. But I guess that's the whole city now, isn't it? We're the aliens and trespassers, not them.

We made it to within two blocks of the northern pass. Dave's tried the radio, but the overgrown trees in this neighborhood are giving us a hell of a time. All we can get is intermittent signal of some useless public interest station playing opera.

We need to go into the open fields between us and the blockade if we want to get anything useful, but that means falling directly in the sights of the soldiers manning the blockade. So, we're waiting for dark.

Dark, and danger. It's what awaits me and the old man.

7/27 4:38am

First second I've had time to write since it all hit the fan. Dave and the new guy are asleep now, and there's nothing to do but replay what happened in my head, over and over. Maybe writing it out will help me sleep. Don't want the Ambien I've got too much of- may make my head cottony, and that's not what I need right now.

The plan was working. We waited until dark, sitting in the shadow of overgrown hedges, trying to get a bead on any possible moaners or crawlers in the no man's land between the neighborhood and the picket. Field was clear; Military was keeping their clear zone cleaned of moaners.

We crept out, very slow. We'd seen spotlights mounted up on the walls, but they didn't switch on at dusk. Dave thinks they were infrared, which means we wouldn't have seen them anyways. He's probably right, because they started rotating in the darkness. The sliver of moonlight would reflect off their glass plates every once in a while.

Still, Dave gauranteed me that we would be ok. "Don't be a little child about it," he told me. "IR goggles won't see at this distance."

So we crawled, slow as snails, into the field.

It was actually working. We'd crawl five or ten feet, side by side, then Dave would twist the volume dial just enough to see if we got a signal. When we invetably didn't, we'd inch forward, and try again. Slow, but stealthy.

We were about thirty feet from the trees when the sirens blared. And oh, they blared. Think they were air raid type sirens. Loud, and getting louder. Then they popped red flares into the sky. Bright as little suns, lighting our field like midday on mars.

Not too proud to admit it, I'd have peed myself if I had anything in the tank when those lights burned on. Dave would've screamed if he didn't have to whisper: "Shut up, and DON'T MOVE."

I thought he was just nuts again, what with them obviously having seen us. The lights, the sound, all of it must be for us, I thought.

Can't think of many time's I've been more happy to be dead wrong.

Soldiers screamed and pointed, and what do you know, a dirtbike rockets out of the way, towards us. Somebody got on a bullhorn and screamed that 'Knox County is a restricted zone, under martial law through' blah blah blah. Didn't matter to me; I was already inside.

Must not have phased the biker, either. He would've kept rocketing toward the city had it not been for a well aimed shot to the back wheel. Rear wheel disintegrated, and he lost his seat from under him. The rider fish tailed twice before seperating from the dirtbike. Only thing that saved his life, too.

The bike kept rolling, momentum bringing it to the very edge of the neighborhood, and the emerging goners. Like a drunk in a marathon, the lead goner stumbled to the bike, hoping for it's first hot, screaming meal in weeks. More followed.

There hadn't been many dead in that area, but every one came calling when the army started the ruckus. Twelve exited the woods, heading toward the carnival our field was becoming.

As the military got distracted by what the megaphone squawked were 'India Eights' on 'Perimeter North', the old man and I made our exit, all plans of stealth radio forgotten. I was up and running, more adrenaline than blood running through my veins. I turned to make sure that the gunmen weren't targeting me, when I saw Dave had stopped entirely. He'd picked up a new pet. The rider had come to a stop some eight feet away from us. Dave helped him up and ran into the trees.

Of all things, did we really need extra weight on a nocturnal escape? With lead zipping by, and every goner within earshot heading toward us?

Decision was out of my hands. The old man just can't leave a good man behind, even if it's gonna get us killed.

7/27 4:38 AM cont

We ran into the trees, out of direct sight of the bloodbath ratcheting up by the picket line. The old man helped our new handicap run. The man, sporting a jury rigged gas mask, was pretty shook up from his fall. He kept stumbling and forcing Dave to slow up to keep both of them standing.

After the blinding light of the blockade clearing, plunging into the neighborhood was like going from sunny Jamaica into the open throat of the Devil himself. Everywhere around us moans swirled and circled, as if every fence and overgrown hedge hid a dozen goners rising from their slumber to see what was so foolish to wake them.

Scared the living shit out of me. Still shaking, even as I write this. Crap like this won't let me go to sleep, no matter how exhausted I am.

Dave and I agreed to head into a house to wait out the inevitable stream of goners that would head toward the blockade. If they kept up their rock show, we could let Dead Ed walk right past us, giving us smooth sailing back to the lumber yard. The most terrifying half hour of my life crawled past, thick with the rotten stench of dead bodies, filled with the ungodly soundtrack of dozens of moaning undead, their throats covered in a thick slime of coagulated blood and putrid bile.

Even after the bulk of them had passed us, every twisting tree and shaking branch held the hint of a crawler just waiting to sink it's broken teeth into my ankles. God damn. My ankles twinge at the very thought.

Dave pulled a flask and took a swig, apparently bearing through the whole ordeal with an inspiring combination of steel nerves and fire water. Our gas masked addition kept going in and out of consciousness. Useless as he is, I pity him for the dreams he must have had then. He kept on groaping against invisible enemies, and I had to cover his mouth several times as the idiot tried to cry out, screaming that there was live flesh in our little hidey hole, ripe for the mangling.

Eventually, we decided to head out. What undead had been in the neighborhood were occupied by the fuss the jarheads were causing, so we threaded our way back with no problems. The only real hindrance was Mr. Gas Mask, who was still very disoriented by the stunt he'd pulled.

We made it back to the lumber yard entrance, no problem. That's when our new lead weight nearly got us killed.

7/27 4:38 am cont.

Dave had to work a winch and pulley system he'd rigged up to get us back into the yard. The place was as quiet and deserted as ever. Daisy was muzzled and penned in the center of the yard, hidden by piles of lumber from any milky undead eyes. While Dave busied himself with those operations, I got stuck baby sitting.

I only moved away from him for a second. He was leaning heavily against a stop sign, breathing heavily, and I thought I'd seen some movement. It must have been a jackrabbit or other critter, because when I went near it rustled away from me, deeper into the underbrush. That was about the time when Mr. Gas Mask started yelling.

I ran back to him, only to see him leveling a small gun at a crawler who had apparently been late to the party. It was crawling toward him, and the idiot was trying to reason with it. I ran up behind him, and I'm not ashamed to admit, knocked him another good one to the head.

If he'd fired off a round that close to the yard, it would have taken absolutely no time to attract any other moaners, either here or across the river. So, I did what was necessary, even if Dave doesn't see it that way.

The crawler was put down in short order by my spiked Louisville slugger, and Dave was back, asking what had happened. I explained it to him, and he of course wasn't happy. Mr Gas Mask had regained some sort of conciousness by then, so I took his peashooter away from him and pulled off his mask, which he seemed to be choking in. He promptly puked. We figured he had a concussion. I gave him some water and we headed back into the yard. He's asleep (unconcious?) now. I wish I knew what to do, but I haven't the faintest idea. I never got my First Aid merit badge in scouts.

He's still breathing, and his pulse is strong, so we've decided to leave him be. He keeps on mumbling "Got to... Liz" under his breath. Liz his girlfriend? Don't know.

Dave found his wallet. He's got a photo of the two of them, Christmas or something. The girl, Liz, is... well, to be honest, she's Attractive. Capital A and all. Silly Christmas stocking cap, blonde hair sticking out. Dimples. Great smile. Laughing, in the picture.

If he's come for her in here, she's probably very, very dead.

7/27 6:03 am

Couldn't sleep. Gray predawn just threatening the horizon. Tossed and turned, but the ruckus up north hasn't let up. Still seeing flares once in a while. Still hearing some gunfire. The old man could sleep through a carpet bombing, and the new guy could well be in a coma, which leaves me. Unwilling to choke down another Ambien. Don't want to get addicted to that stuff.

So, I decided to see what the new guy brought with him. What I found surprised me. Who would bring a cell phone into a war zone? Havent' seen a functional one since all this began. Signals were blocked since before I ever saw my first moaner. Mr. Gas Mask's name is James Matteson. Almost all his texts are to that same Liz. Pretty standard stuff, can't wait to see you, when are you coming back, etc etc.

Paging through the messages now. Seems she worked at the local waste treatment facility. It's right next to the college I dropped out of last year. Wonder if I saw her there?

Shit. Looks like she was there when all this started. Muldraugh U was hit hard. Dorms are a pressure cooker for flu and the cold. Why not this virus too?

The texts are out of this world. They go like this.

8:00PM

James: You're the one who wanted to do hazmat repair. Your own fault if only one district had an opening... only one outside the Peach state, that is.

8:03PM

Liz: Don't do this again. I couldn't stay in Georgia. You know mother would have kept me on a short leash.

8:08PM

James: Honestly Liz, do you think I was worried about that? You've been able to avoid her reach for years. Btw, getting on the subway.

8:08PM

Liz: K. How is Glasgow treating you? Enjoying your little Scottish adventure?

8:18PM

James: It's not a little adventure. It's an overseas education at a PREMIERE medical institute. Wish you would support me.

8:20PM

Liz: Riiiiight. I support you more than anyone else. Stuck up much :)?

8:25PM

Liz: Did they have to build the plant next to sorority row? I'll NEVER get any work done tonight.

8:30PM

James: Partying again?

8:30PM

Liz: God. Louder than normal. Starting earlier than normal, too. Not Halloween now, is it?

8:31PM

James: When was the last time you left work? It's spring, not fall. NOT All-Hallow's Eve, my sweet hobnob.

8:32PM

Liz: Your European uppity-ness is getting annoying. There's just a lot of screaming going on over there.

8:33PM

Liz: What the hell? Oh mh Ffkudfjlgggggos

8:34PM

James: Liz? What's up?

8:35PM James! sShit, James! They're eating each other1 James/1a sdfou wehsdf the hell/?

8:36PM

James: LIZ? LIZ? I can't raise you through a call! Liz? What's going on? LIZ?

...And that's where it ends. Shit. If this Liz was in the city when the outbreak began, she's gotta be dead. Hope James wasn't trying to get to her, though by the look of it, that's exactly what was happening.

Sleep tight, Mr. Matteson. In for some major disappointment when you wake.

7/27 10:45am

The jets woke me. Dave was already outside in the morning light before I got up.

He told me that they were F-17's, and something about a sortie. I had no idea what he meant, but the answer became clear enough when the ground began to shake, and rippling, bassy booms of explosives ripped through the air.

Dave whooped- actually jumping off the ground. Dave slapped my back and whooped again. "Rock and roll steals the show! I ever tell you I was on the ground during the Rolling Thunder? That was a damn righteous act, don't care what anyone says. God Bless the Air Force!"

After the explosions (and Daisy) died down, I got the old man to explain his enthusiasm to me. He impatiently explained that, since the blockade was to the north of us, and that's where the jets had gone, the picket line must be advancing to retake the city. "Don't you watch History Channel, Mikey? Close air support's like God himself taking your side. Always want it when you're taking back an area."

This lumber yard is right next to the northern picket of the quarantine. We only need to sit tight and make sure that the advancing lines don't mistake us for Dead Ed's compadres.

The new guy isn't up yet. Hope that fall didn't scramble his brains permanently. Would hate to tell his girlfriend he made it to the doorstep but tripped on the welcome mat. Course, she's probably more interested in eating his gray matter, scrambled or not.

7/27 12:00 noon

Looks like the old man's hallelujah chorus came too early. Turns out the jets weren't just dropping bombs. Decided that adding some napalm to the mix was a great idea. And, unfortunately for us squatters in a lumber yard, the wind is blowing to the south. Toward little old us.

We can see the smoke from here. Black, acrid stuff. My skin's already prickling, just thinking how hot it'll get.

And the cherry on top. James Matteson woke up about five minutes ago. Gave him some water and went off to try to quiet Daisy down. Looks like he didn't get a concussion of any sort. Maybe a bit wobbly on his legs, but right as rain otherwise. After the knocking he got, I'm rightly surprised. Course, I already know he's world shatteringly hard headed. Right now he's standing up and walking over to Dave. Looks like I'm missing the board meeting. Be back.

7/27 1:30pm

We're heading out. James swears that the only safe option for us (he's part of 'us' already?) is to move south and hop the river. Has a map out and everything, says he familiarized himself with the land, and it's our only shot. Honestly, I don't see any alternatives, but I'm still not happy. No way of carrying all of the old man's stockpile, so we're leaving behind a lot of supplies.

Irks me that we're following some guy who just got here, too. Doubting James has any real idea what he's insisting we do. That river is a good moat for us, this side of the river. Goners from the city are stuck on the other side. That'll all change when we cross it.

Dave's speaking to James now, doing his best to explain the way the world works inside the picket line. Lots of hand waving and 'Dead Ed this, Dead Ed that,' going on. James keeps shaking his head. Trying to clear it or thinking that the old man is lying. Either way, Jimmy Matteson is in for a suprise when we get out. If he doesn't know about the moaners, he will soon enough.

Haven't told Dave yet about the text messages, and James doesn't know I saw them. I'd bet that his real reason for heading toward the city is to make his way to the processing plant and his girlfriend.

We'll see. In the meantime, I've got some packing to do.

7/28 11:14am

Made it south of the river, barely. Somebody died doing it. Here's how it went down.

We stuffed our packs full as we dared. Dave, rumpled army rucksack, me and my old Jansport, and James with his svelte motorcycle backpack. Daisy ran around all of us the whole time, wagging her tail and begging for a treat.

Dave handed his fireax to James. James has a pitifully small pocket pistol. Four shots, .22 caliber. Even I know there's no punch in a gun like that. When I get a chance, I need to ask him exactly what he thought was going on when he came in here. Miniature gun and a gasmask? Strange combination to be entering a medieval arena with.

The old man was on edge, and for good reason. I nearly died moving from one house to another just a few weeks ago. Now we were crossing a bridge to an unknown neighborhood inhabited by who knows what, to avoid an inferno at our back? Absolutely insane.

Dave took point with his sawed off pump. "Five shells in the tube, one in the chamber," He told us, "and then I'm up for a reload. Gets bad enough, I'll toss one of these," he growled, showing us several bottles, stopped off with rags at the top. "get the hell away when I do. Fire is a fickle beast, and it'll eat you, give it a chance."

Daisy obediently by his side, we crept out of the yard. I jumped at every creak and whisper, not ashamed to admit. The only one who wasn't so keyed up was James, either because his head was still discombobulated or because he had no idea what he was getting into. Probably both.

The street was unseemly quiet as we scuttled down. Sweat stained my hands, and I had to keep wiping left, then the right as we moved. Dave did his best to cover every door and alley we passed, and did a decent job, for being only one gun and one man.

We passed over the bridge without trouble. But it was soon in coming.

Just as James stepped off the bridge and onto cracked sidewalk, Daisy whined. Dave swept his gun to the right as a moaner, previously silent, emerged from a house's shadow. "Only one of 'em. Handle it, Mikey," Dave hissed. I took two long steps through the swinging fence, and pierced the graying shambler's brain with my six-spiked slugger. James, who had been shocked by the very sight of it, cried out when I brained it.

"My God! What the hell did you just do?" He yelled, all pretense at quiet completely lost.

Dave furiously hushed him, while I turned, blood throbbing through my temples. As I did, I caught sight of two more locals on the other side of the street. "Shut. The Hell. UP." I croaked, raising my bat.

Daisy was whining to her master, who swung around his barrel at the approaching DeadEds. "Goddamnit James. Get the hell over there and take those two down." He said, eyes flicking back and forth from the two moaners to our shocked group mate.

"Wha-what? No! You shoot them!" He yelled, still completely unaware of his own volume.

Without a moment of warning, Dave darted over to Matteson and slapped him. Hard. The DeadEds kept coming, moaning louder now that they saw three of us. As this happened, I strode toward the other side of the road, readying my bat to deal with the mulitple threats.

"What did I tell you! Damn idiot pansy! You do what I damn well say when I damn well say it or we all die? Get the fucking picture?" Dave roared, unshaven face inches from James'.

The moaners were frisky, raising their arms in an attempt to grab my arms and take a bite. The slugger broke all the fingers on the left one's outstretched hand, but that didn't stop it. I stepped in, bringing the bat down in a crushing blow to the head. The other, seeing an opportunity, grasped my undefended right arm. Viselike, it pulled my arm hard, crushing and bruising my forearm. I kicked it's inside knee, which snapped with a wet thump. This of course did not stop it, but did give me the space to buck it's grip and bring down the polished wood on it's face, effectively neutralizing it.

James, face drained of color, watched it all happen. He then nodded, wiping from his face some of Dave's spittle. For a moment, I stood, staring at him, corpses at my feet.

Unbeknownst to me, several goners had been watching us from the wide windows of the store I stood next to. As I stood, appetizing back completely open to them, they burst through the window. Dave saw them and realized five goners would easily overpower me. He levelled the short barrel at them, and unleashed a cloud of Double Oh lead at them.

That, I believe, is when it all went south.

7/28 11:14am cont.

Dave's lead shot tore through two goners. A third's back was broken, sending it down- but not out. It kept right on moaning, heading toward me with dead eyes and inhuman resolve.

I instinctively ducked as he fired three shots into the moaning crowd, cowering away from angry lead streaking toward me. Have no idea how close it actually came, but I could swear my jacket got new ventilation.

Another four clambered out of the storefront window, slicing and shredding their hands as they did. Realizing that the odds were against me, I retreated back to the other two, while Daisy yapped away, hackles up. I saw several more in the darkened interior of the store, shuffling toward us.

Dave nodded to the house on opposite side of the street, and we booked toward it. James, still in complete shock at the sudden violence, turned to follow us a moment later. The old man and I were not in the mood to slow, and James realized this. "Don't leave me!"

Terror, absolute, total, and complete, filled his quaking voice. He raised a hand toward us.

And he tripped.

I turned, barely inside the door of the house. He fell, and fell hard. Unsteady limbs collapsed. The ax fell, cutting edge striking the curb, chipping with a sharp clang.

Dave turned, further in than I, and put his hand on my shoulder. His face was set in hard lines. "Damn fool. Can't risk that mob killing us too."

I paused, much less certain. My mind flashed back to Rob, that night. Dave was right, of course. I should have learned Rob's lesson and not stopped, not even for a moment. I saw a whole set of moaners stumbling out of the store, toward James' fallen body. I knew that the possibility was good that we would all die in a fruitless last stand. But I stopped, for just a moment. Uncertain.

That's when Daisy slipped out the door. In a flash, she was out next to James, then she was past him. Hackles raised, she loped toward the invading moaners.

Dave cried out. I paused a moment more, surprised witless. That damn dog was was acting more loyally than Dave or me.

Daisy snapped and retreated, trying to scare the moaners. What worked for all canines for all time past did not work for her. These walking corpses have more in common with Roombas than any animal wolves ever fought. They don't stop, don't turn, don't even blink. They just move forward, dog or not.

I ran out, Dave's slack grip not letting me go. Old, congealed blood flew when I got close. The slugger pushed them back, Daisy snapping and snarling. Goners want us, people that is, more than animals. But they still grabbed at her. They still got a couple bone crushing swipes in.

Dave was next to James by then. He didn't worry about counting his rounds then. Blasted into the crowd, screaming. Not words, just screaming.

The goners died for their second and final time. Every single one. Done. Holes punctured, blouses blasted, faces smashed. Few had hamstrings ripped loose, bloodied by Daisy's fangs.

In a minute, maybe less, the firefight was over. Three of us breathers trying to run and gun's one thing. Trying to move without being seen, trying to avoid loud noises. We're pretty weak, doing that. But fangs, bat, and a shotgun bent on murder are another story entirely.

Daisy was huffing and puffing by then. Blood matted her fur, too much. She swayed on her feet. Without comment, the old man picked up his dog. She's not a small pup; Dave didn't care.

I helped James up, who's mouth still hung at all the carnage, and we caught up to the veteran. He wasn't waiting for us. He was murmuring to Daisy, who wagged her tail off and on, whimpering.

We made it through a few blocks down, and we've set up in the top part of a store, the part above that doubled as the owner's home.

The lumber yard is burning now, across the Spedwater. We were lucky. Out of the frying pan, for sure. But what the hell kind of fire have we jumped into now?

7/28 5:38pm

The old man's dog whimpers a little. Looks like she's messed up in places we can't get to. Dave mashed up one of my painkillers and gave it to her in some stew. She couldn't hold it down, and threw up what little she did scarf all over the table, where Dave had set her.

Dave, crazy fruitcake Dave Calhoun is crying a little. A few tears, running down, grim on his face. He's massaging her back, and talking, like you would to a baby. Trying to make her feel better. He knows what's coming.

Been hours since any of us ate anything. I think I'll make some more of that Campbell's soup and try to find some crackers. But I don't want to disturb Calhoun now. I think I'll wait.

James hangs back. Actually, he's crying too. More than the old man. Him blowing his nose is about the only loud thing in the entire little apartment.

Looks like he wants to say something, probably I'm sorry or I'm really really sorry. Can see it plainly written all over his face. He glances out the window every now and then. That shellshock over the moaners turning to nice deep paranoia. If I were him, I'd have a lot to say too.

But not now.

At this point, we're just waiting.

7/30 6:48 am

Happened two hours ago. Daisy died.

She was worse toward the end, whining pretty loud. Kept on looking to her owner, brown dog eyes just asking him to make the pain go away. He stayed with her all night. I slept fitfully in the room furthest away from them. When I came in to that bedroom, James was there already. He sat in the armchair, staring out the window. We could hear whimpers.

Don't think either of us slept a wink. Don't think anyone in that building did the entire night.

At four AM, coldest time of night, Dave came in. He asked James where the pocket pistol was. James seemed for a moment fearful why Dave was asking for his gun. But Dave's eyes were very red, and very sad. He told James it was for Daisy.

I don't think I would have had the nerve to do that. Not to an animal as loyal as that dog was to Dave. However, old Calhoun had the nerve. He did what Daisy's brown eyes were asking. He stopped the pain.

7/30 9:00am

Dave asked us to watch his back while he buried the dog. Incredibly stupid thing to do. Immensely. But I couldn't deny the old man. And James? James wouldn't be worth much in a fight, way he is right now, but he'd try.

The old store owner had a back room on floor level, and gardening tools. Dave carried her body, carefully wrapped in the old owner's bedspread. When we got outside, he picked the spot, still holding her. He was next to losing it out there, so I started digging for him. Kept on til the hole was a foot deep. Dave was weeping freely by then, and I stopped. He set her down, and dug for a while himself.

The grave was deep enough when he stopped. He put the shovel aside, and began to pick up the old dog's limp body when James spoke up, voice shaking and weak. "Can I help? I mean, dig too? She did, you know..." he trailed off, voice out of power.

That was a long moment. Dave stared at the hole, then eventually handed the shovel to James, who got to the business. None of us said anything when we put her in the whole, or as we filled in the grave. Not a moaner in sight the whole time, and good thing, too. We weren't exactly ready for it.

Now we sit, staring at one another, at the kitchen table. This pen scratching against the journal's paper is the only noise.

James is the one to speak up first.


	4. Chapter 5

7/30 12:00pm

James glanced at me, then at Dave. He began simply: "I had no idea. Not about any of this. When the outbreak began I was studying in Cambridge. The news we got over there was bewildering and contradictory. Some sort of avian flu 2.0. BBC disagreed with foreign networks, with each other, and with all common sense. Inasmuch as I knew, it was just a highly virulent flu which they had managed to quarantine here, in Knox County."

Dave shot me a glance. He hadn't moved, as if James hadn't said a thing. I guess he didn't mind that something was taking his mind off of what had just happened. James continued. "The bugger about it was that Liz was here. Of all the luck, my sister lands a job here."

I choked a bit on my water, there. His sister?

"She works at the Waste Treatment Plant on the east edge. Wouldn't stay in Georgia. Had to get away from Mother. From what I gather, she was present when this, this... crisis began. I came here to get her, but it appears that I lacked some indispensable facts before I arrived."

"I'm... I'm sorry about your dog. I had no idea... no idea what to do. Those people. They were attacking us, they were cutting their hands but weren't bleeding... And the noise. That moaning..."

He paused for a long second. "I'm sorry, Mr. Calhoun. I didn't mean for your dog..."

He trailed off, staring at his own cup of water, a glass swiped from the cupboard. It had sunflowers and daisies all round it. His eyes stared at the unseen. The gentleman may have been walking all today without complaining, but it was obvious he was still weak from the head injury.

"What the bleeding hell is going on?" he whispered, watching the swirling water.

The flames cracked and churned outside. Light pushed through the window, past the brown, dead plants on the kitchen sill. No one moved.

Dave, surprisingly, was the one to answer. He pushed down inside the folds of his jacket and fished out his inhaler. One puff, and his hand reached back inside his breast pocket, pulling out a small flask. He let out a long sigh, then tipped it back.

"Damn horse shit."

"Son," he said, pushing his flask in front of Mattteson. "you shoulda listened when those quarantiners told you to stay put. Shoulda heard me when I told you 'bout Dead Ed out there."

His eyes glanced at the kitchen table, marked with brow stains. "Shoulda, but you didn't."

James started to speak, but the old man put up a hand. "Not the first time I tried talking good sense and nobody listened. Won't be the last. My mutt is dead, and that's all there is to say. Good thing she came back for you, 'cause that shamed me to doing the right thing too."

He looked at me, brown eyes deep. "Can't leave nobody behind now. We breathers got to stick thick as thieves. Daisy got it right."

James opened the flask and took a sip. He coughed, unused to the strong moonshine.

Dave stood. "Now, where'd you say that sis of yours was?"

7/31 10:39 am

Suicide. This is suicide. We had a good thing going at the lumber yard. If we hadn't gotten grand designs on finding out what was going on outside, we would have been fine. We should've learned the right lessons when everything went south. We should've learned to stay put and keep our heads down. If we'd stayed there, the jets wouldn't have even dropped the napalm.

Probably. They probably wouldn't have. It's possible that the planes would have set fire to the blockade zone even if we hadn't been there, because of James' escape attempt. Even if that's true, James wouldn't have been hanging around, holding us back. Without James, we wouldn't have had the foulup getting cross the river. And without that, Dave's stupid dog would be still be yapping. It was more useful than this idiot.

For some reason, the old man's decided that we need to go into the city to save this girl. This girl who nobody's seen for two weeks. For all we know, we could fight our way through a flood of moaners only to find her dead body, crouched over the guts and grizzle of one of her coworkers. Wouldn't that be great.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to play hero. She's cute, and all of a sudden, single. If this was speed dating, I would love to ride to her rescue from bachelor #8. From her button nose to dimples, she's got to be the most attractive girl within miles. And if she was just stuck in the suburbs, it might make sense to pull off a rescue. But the middle of the city? That's a different story.

We're giving up on the best way of keeping alive. James' scrambled noggin doesn't know it, but these burbs are safer than inside. I remember the night I left my apartment next to campus. It was chaos. And I bet that every one of the people I saw boarding up their doors and trying to save their neighbors is dead or dead and still walking.

Damnit. James doesn't know how bad it is here, but the old man's got no excuse. He understands what we're heading into. The man is nutty, but this goes beyond garden variety odd. Just 'cause his damn dog died saving James doesn't mean we need to die saving some girl who may or may not be _alive_. Every time he talks about saving her, he gets a far off look in his eyes, like he's envisioning a grand noble sacrifice.

Damn fool.

That far off look's going to get me killed. We can't try to save her. Can hardly stay alive ourselves. This rescue mission, it's insane. Mark my words, someone'll die trying this. Most likely, all of us.

7/31 8:53pm

Spent the day getting ready to go. My worries kept growing, like rust eating through sheet metal. Leave it out long enough, it'll just crumble to bits. James gets to me. He's the weak link in this chain.

We gathered supplies from the surrounding buildings. Hazardous if done wrong, but the old man decided it would be necessary if we were going to "get the hell into dodge". I had the luck of holding James hand while Dave slipped out behind the neighboring gas station. He worked on getting a pump to work while I stood with slugger cradled, playing lookout and kindegarten teacher.

James sat on the curb, staring at a headbashed moaner we'd dispatched on the way over. "This is so unbelievable. Just incredible." he mumbled, mesmerized by the rotting goner.

"Believe it," I grunted. "This is where you're at. Can't have you staring at them every time we see a group, tripping all over yourself. You'll do your share of swinging soon enough. If you want to survive."

"What could do this?" James asked, my comment completely ignored. "The experts said it was artifical influenza. Broke out of the university containment labs, they said. Like Whooping Cough. Only hit you if you came in contact with someone infected. Lock down Muldraugh and let it burn itself out."

He laughed, hoarse, at that. "Burn itself out. Nutters. My only sister's in here, and they say, 'problem will solve itself, don't trouble yourself'. Self righteous pricks. No idea what was actually going on in here, and they expected me to just forget about her? Insufferable, short sighted, small minded idiots."

He looked up at me, then. "I was studying for my MD. When the world caught wind of 'the Knox County Contagion', I forced my way to the head virologist at Cambridge. He told me not to worry. He told me to let the bloody 'problem solve itself'."

His brown eyes burned as he watched the wind flit the jacket of the goner back and forth. "Bloody prick."

Dave came round about then, hauling two bright red gas cans. James stood, and unexpectedly, clasped my shoulder. "Thank you, Michael. Thank you for helping me." He left toward Dave, taking one of the cans. Didn't see my glare.

Well, shit. James is fruitcake much as the old man. And he thinks I'm on board with this suicide mission. No convincing either of them off this track. Not even if it gets us killed.

8/1 11:58pm (1 of 3)

Shooting's over for now. Hopefully writing this won't get me killed for not paying attention. The old man is keeping watch out the window. Hopefully he'll stay conscious the entire time. Bleeding stopped, so he shouldn't be passing out anytime soon.

Our little foray into hell got us right where I thought it would. Knee deep in crap.

Started out sensible enough. We'd scrounged a good solid club for Jimmy- he hates it when me and the old man call him that. Along with a set of Molotov's for each of us and a set a flares I found in the back of an SUV. Decided we'd looted what we needed from the surrounding area. Left out the back, and Dave spent a couple minutes next to the fresh patch of dirt where his dog lays. When he got back to where I uncomfortably waited, he was talking about how "dog's got a sense of duty. Duty to it's master, duty to us all. Us left alive got to stick together."

He took a puff of the inhaler, and we set out. James wasn't trying to outrun the two of us this time. Call him a lot of things, but I won't call him a fool. Learned his lesson.

There were a few moaners as we passed through back alleys and across intersections. As long as we went slow, didn't talk, and staked out each area ahead, we did fine. Moaners are slow as hell if they don't know you're there, and can be snuck up on. Every time we saw one, two would hang back while the last snuck up on it and bashed it's skull in quiet as can be. First time James was up, he managed to kill the thing- a petite old lady in sweats- with one violent, well aimed stroke. He turned green when he looked her over. Found out that James can vomit quieter than he can walk.

We saw a few large groups shambling along, but heard them far before they saw or heard us. Was easy to sneak round them, taking side roads and carefully picking our way through buildings. The old man had studied a local map for a long time to fix in his mind how to get to the waste facility. Can't think of many things worse than getting lost in HellTown USA.

Sneaking into the lion's den got to all of us. The moaning, most of it muddy and distant, got louder the further we went into the city. By about noon, the old man signaled we would stop for 'rations' in a 'temp camp'. Basically, we holed up in the back corner of a second story apartment and chowed on cold Spam and crackers. The walls quieted the noise a bit and removed some of the hair prickling certainty that this city no longer belongs to the living.

James didn't eat much, but he kept on through the afternoon and into the evening, more and more jumpy. I'm jumpy too, round this much danger and blighted despair, but James took it harder, specially as we got closer to our destination. Saw him shaking his head to himself a couple times. Must be thinking of Liz. Just his luck, then, that he was the first one to see the bodies.

8/1 11:58pm cont. (2 of 3)

We'd seen a number of corpses, either dead or twice dead on our way in. Crashes, crushed pedestrians, residents of Knox who lost their lives one way or another. This, however, was the first battlefield we'd ever seen.

The reason for the fight's obvious. Front window like a mouth filled with broken glass teeth smoldered the ruined remains of a gun shop. All round it, the dead festered. Bodies closest to the store were badly burned. Charred necks strained back at unnatural angles, the heat of fire bunching muscles. Further away, many of the dead appeared to be victims of the store's goods. Whether or not they were dead when they were shot, I don't know.

James retched. Whiffs of cooked meat freely mixed with the decay of rotten death and old bile. The intersection, shielded as it was from wind, stunk of many, many dead. I had to clamp my own jaw as my diaphragm considered adding the stench of vomit to the riot of smell bombarding my nose, my face, and my watering eyes.

Dave immediately brought up his shotgun, wary as a nervous old jack rabbit. "Bad sign, this is. Better get on out of here."

James wiped his mouth, trying to avoid looking at any bodies. "God. Yes. Appears we've got eight blocks, if we go straight. We're close."

Evening was falling fast, and long shadows blanketed the city streets. Eye watering sunlight contrasted sharply against the deepening building shadows, making an impossible patchwork of too bright and too dark that we snuck through, every hair pricked and every sense tight with dread. James, finally, realized how much trouble we were waltzing into. His eyes darted front and back, breath tense. He wiped sweat from his forehead with quick, anxious hands.

Even given our attentiveness, the attack struck us like lightning- impossibly fast and impossibly bad. One second, Dave walked ahead of us, and the next, a black arrow streaked into him.

8/1 11:58 cont. (3 of 3)

Dave fell, the thin, black arrow protruding from his left bicep. He yelled in unexpected pain and fell, dropping his shotgun. At almost the same moment, scrambling, scratching noises burst from the second story of a dingy motel next to us. An avalanche of falling cans jangled on as someone, obscured by the deep shadow, scampered away from his sniping perch.

For a moment, I stood frozen, my hands white knuckled on bat, legs frozen mid stride. Then James darted forward to grab Dave. I ran forward to help him, grabbing him underneath his right armpit and dragging him away from the sidewalk, toward the motel's lobby.

"Damnit! You dipshits! I can handle my damn self! Grab THE SHOTGUN!" He screamed, struggling to use James' outstretched arm to lever himself up. In a shocked and guilty moment, I realized we'd left our only non-clubbing weapon in the center of the street. I left the old man and James and made a run for the gun, which lay in the center of the street, blunt barrel touching yellow divider line.

The moans were close now, four, five, eight of them, all around. As I ran toward the gun, a moaner, this one lacking use of one of it's legs, trudged halting toward me. A deep, raspy moan passing through its' yellow, broken teeth.

I grabbed the fallen gun and ran, ungainly with a heavy pack, back into the lobby. Dave and James were already heading toward the stairs. Dave's face, a white mask, spoke volumes. The arrow went in one side and exited the other side, four inches through his arm.

We busted into stairs, shutting the door of the stairwell and blocking it with a shaft of broken railing. Whoever did the shooting must have cleared the motel with his bow, and if not the entire building, the definitely the floor he was on when he shot.

We followed the old man into the main hallway of the second floor, where we paused. Dave was close to collapse; "The hell with this," he growled. "Goddamn cowboys and indians in here."

James set down his pack and rifled through it, his hands visibly shaking. "Knew that I found some back there... Where is that blasted... There we go!"

He pulled free a package of gauze and ripped it open.

With the other two busy, I was the only one equipped to find the bastard with the bow. Handed the shotgun to James and told him to watch over our friend.

It only took until the third room. The door was unhinged, and when I burst in, an arrow swished past my cheek. I didn't wait for any other invitations and barreled in. The man was hastily attempting to reload his crossbow, and didn't even see me hit him. I swung with the blunt side of my bat, smashing his arm in mid reload. His bone snapped audibly, send him crashing to the floor, tangling his broken arm in the workings of the bow.

He tried to rise again, and I saw the flash of steel in his other hand. With another powerful strike, his back, arched and thin, collapsed. Someone was screaming at that point, me or him, I don't know.

I raised my bat once more, as he lay, flopped on his side, pain etching his hollow face. His eyes were wild and a scratchy, overgrown beard only reached halfway round his jaw, leaving a dark patchwork to descend his neck. His adam's apple bobbed, and I realized that he was speaking.

"They came here! They'll eat you! They'll eat me! I won't let them! They'll grab and rip and break and gnaw and moan and moan and moan and-"

The insane, crazed man whipped out in one last, violent spasm. His huge survival knife, still somehow held by his unbroken arm, stabbed out. I brought the slugger down, screaming, onto his temple.

He died instantly.

8/2 4:38pm

Turns out James is a doctor. He has medical training and everything. He is, however, almost completely useless.

By the time I returned to the other two, Dave was holding his leatherman multi tool, pliers out, toward James. James' face had turned broiling green. "You've got to be off your bleeding rocker! I have no training whatsoever to do that!"

Dave, whose eyes were closed, spoke with steel in his voice. "Goddamnit. You said you were a doctor. Pull the arrow!"

"I was _studying_ to be a rehabilitative _PODIATRIST_! Not some godforsaken trauma medic! I can't stand the sight of blood!"

The old vet threw the pliers at him, then cracked open one eye. "You. Are a doctor. Pull the arrow."

James picked up the pliers, gulped, and carefully went to work.

By the time it was done, we had used the rest of the flask of hard liquor Dave had been saving, and James was ready to retch. The moaners had by then been broken through the doors of the lobby.

Thank God Dave knew to keep his mouth shut through the whole arrow pulling operation. If he had started screaming, rather than whimpering loudly into a rolled rag, we would have been dead.

We slept the night through up there, and have (very quietly) gathered everything useful from the hotel floor we are on. It's not much. I returned to the place my opponent had died, room 216. James was standing in there, staring at the corpse. "How long was he here?" James asked. "How long does it take for a sane, normal human to go crazy? How much of this blasted moaning does it take for someone here to lose themselves?"

His eyes, haunted by images of the room and the city, told me he wasn't just thinking about this man. He was wondering about the condition of someone else, someone much more important to him than a lunatic with a hunting crossbow. Suppose she's alive. Suppose she's a crazed animal. What do we do then?

I know my answer. Looks James finally realized he needs to take a hard look at his. This world's gone medieval. Time we do the same.


	5. Chapter 6

8/3

11:48 pm

Say what you want about them, but goners are hard workers. Oh sure, they're intelligent as brain damaged lemmings, but when they get an idea in their damn rotten noggins, it sticks.

When there's only one of them slowly, patiently banging at the door, it's not a problem. When three others decide to join the party, even that isn't too worrying. But when a mob of fifteen are slowly splintering the heavy oak door below you, every day, every hour, every minute, never tiring, never taking breaks you have to admire their persistence. And inhale icy dread into every nook of your heart, because you know that they're coming for you.

James noticed first. We were trying to catch some shut-eye in room 203 when he rolled over and groaned into the darkness. "What in good God's name is that insufferable noise?"

I opened a sandpaper eye, staring into the darkness. "Jimmy. That's the sound of the largest woodpecker in the world knocking the window down."

Jim moaned. "And he's a comedian as well as major league hitter."

I was readying another snark when the noise doubled, followed by a thin but very distinct _crack_.

"Oh bloody hell. Is that really those monsters?"

I nodded, then remembered how dark it was. "Yup."

"And you're not worried?"

"Door's oak. I'm beat, couldn't run if I wanted to. And there are only-"

Another sharp crack warbled up the stairwell, and I stopped.

"Shit. Changed my mind. Yes. I am worried. Must be more of them than last I saw down there. One wouldn't cracking it down so fast."

Realized then how close to stinking death we were. We've got to get the hell out of this motel. Those oak doors won't stand more than a day, tops, and after that they'll be right to us. No use hiding. I've seen moaners splinter down every single door of a place once they get in the mood. Not the faintest idea _why_, but I've never had the chance to ask. Maybe their brain just keeps reliving all the door opening memories of the past. Maybe the devil himself whispers in their ear. Don't know. Don't want to find out.

Not sure Dave's up to any travel. Slept through our entire conversation. Wound to his arm gave him a hell of a time, and he sucked down the rest of his hip flask after James patched him up. James guesses a good night's sleep and painkillers will go a long way. Sure damn hope so, 'cause we're leaving tomorrow.

One way or another.

8/4 p1

9:45 am

Jimmy had it right. By this morning the old man was swearing and making plans as if yesterday's violence hadn't even happened. James put on a good, tight bandage 'for compression', he says. It keeps Dave from doing any flexing with his bicep, which is supposed to help it heal correctly. Jimmy thinks that, with proper rest and nutrition, the old man could have full use of the arm in a week. 'Course, with our current situation, a week of proper rest and food's about as likely as a helicopter evacuation staffed by New York super models.

However, I might have an idea that works almost as well. Not half as glamorous or distractingly pretty, but it has the upside of being workable. So long as none of us gets vertigo.

I went through the rest of the floors of our roach motel, hoping our crazyman had some sort of hidden escape route. He didn't. By the time I got to the fifth and final floor, I was about ready to call it quts on life and eat the barrel of Jame's peashooter pistol. That's when I saw the final set of stairs, to the roof.

When I got out there, I was greeted by the standard box-building toppings. A few dead AC units, leaves scattered around, dirty brown puddles in the low spots- and a ladder. Turns out that the maintenance man had been doing some work on the hotel's neon sign and needed to reach the top of the ad. I turned behind me and realized that the building across the alley from us, an office complex, has a roof only one story higher than the motel's. And this insane, stupid idea formed in my head.

I (very quietly) grabbed the ladder, and eyeballed the distance between us and 'Keedy and Lee Law Offices', proudly established circa 1983. The alley's about ten feet wide, and I judge the distance between the tops of the two buildings to be about twenty feet, give or take. The ladder stretches far enough if you include that last rung that you're not supposed to stand on, because it's unsafe.

Unsafe. Right. Let's see how this works out.

8/4 p2

11:40pm

Somebody upstairs must love us.

When I told Jimmy and the old man about my grand idea, I was surprised to find that Dave was the one to turn green. Never had him pegged as afraid of heights. Honestly, never had him pegged as afraid of anything in particular.

They were both wary, but Dead Ed kept on banging, and that constant beat filled in every pause of our conversation. Made a more convincing argument than I ever could. James kept glancing at the floor, as if he was worried a clawed hand would shoot up from the threadbare carpet, like in the horror flicks. "Haven't much choice, do we, anyway?" He asked, more to himself than either of us.

It was decided. We packed up the stairs to the top floor, carefully locking every door behind us. Sometimes Ed gets confused by all the closed doors and busts each one open, one at a time, especially if he can't hear your direction. Makes him aimless.

When we got to the top floor of rooms, James and I dragged some of the shapeless mattresses to the roof. Dave was busy talking himself into how this was a great idea. The man sure seems crazier when he's in the middle of a heated argument- with himself- but I didn't let that worry me. The crash of the bottom stairwell door breaking gave me enough to worry about. Ed finally made matchsticks of our last defence. Time to get a move on.

James had by them positioned the heap of mattresses about two feet from the edge. I lugged the ladder over and set it's base down, using the mattresses as a backstop. I extended the ladder to it's tallest and, hands sweaty with worry and fear, began to lay it as gently as I could across the open chasm between us and our neighboring building. As the ladder began to feel it's own weight, I pulled against it, working to keep it from gaining momentum and slipping out of control. Of course, my sweat drenched palms didn't help that process at all, and my caution was useless.

The good news is that the ladder was only about four feet from the edge of the of the other building, and didn't bounce off the law office and into the alley. That would've been our death knell. The bad news is that it fell four feet, clattering like monkey cymbals, calling to every moaner's attention that, yes, there are still living sacks of meat in the area, and yes, they've conveniently announced their location to you and all of your other rotting pals.

James was the first onto the ladder. He's the lightest, and Dave had pointed out that the thing wouldn't be stable until someone was holding it on the other side. You could tell Jimmy was scared as a cat in the dog kennel, but he put one hand ahead of the other. Dave cringed away as he slowly, so slowly moved across. The aluminum groaned ominously as Mr. Matteson scampered across on hands and knees, but held until he reached the other side.

The old man had absolutely no desire to make the crossing, which is why we decided he should go second. Second place, in this situation, was better than first or last. With one of us on either side keeping it steady, the middle monkey would get the most stable trip. I took the shotgun from him, and we moved as much of the food and molotovs from his rucksack into mine. The climb would be difficult and dangerous enough with an injured arm. With a fully loaded pack, it was just suicide by another name.

Dave was praying to Jesus by then, telling the good Lord he'd get right with him and didn't want to get eaten. Lot of swearing too, but I doubt God cares. One booted foot went onto the bottom rung, then his right hand on another. Slowly, he shrugged his arm out of the sling, and gently put pressure on it.

I could almost feel his pain, by all the grunts and squelched screams that vented through his clenched teeth. The muscles in his neck tensed up each time he made another move with his wounded arm, painfully articulating the agony he was in. About halfway through, it gave. He landed flat on his face, cheek burying into one of the metal rungs of the ladder. It swayed dangerously then, threatening to flip onto it's side and leave the vet hanging as if on a monkey ladder. I dropped to my knees and laid hands on the bottom rungs, trying to use my weight to keep it from tipping.

8/4 p3

11:40pm- continued.

For a moment, the right side of ladder twisted up dangerously, right rung rising one, then two, then three inches into the air. I threw my body onto that side as James did the same, setting our three hundred pounds against inertia and momentum. The right side, after a moment of breathless worry and straining, slowly came back down.

Bad as it was on the building, I don't want to think how Dave must have felt. He hung on with his good arm, whimpering - honestly, whimpering- and clenching his teeth even harder against the movement.

Face to the rungs, staring at fifty feet of nothing between you and the concrete, no one would've blamed him for freezing. I remember going on roller coasters and vicing down so hard to the holds my hands turned white. So, if Dave froze, who would blame him? It'd be condemning me to a screaming death in the mouths of moaners, but honestly, who could've blamed him? Sure as hell not me.

Which is why Dave has my respect. After only a few seconds of hard breathing, staring into that empty, huge nothing between himself and the ground, he released his death grip on the rungs. Slowly, unsteadily, he got back up to a crawler's stance. And he moved forward.

Damn. That man is a man.

I wanted to wipe the sweat from my forehead, but was too afaid to let go of the bottom rung. So I let the stinging stuff drip into my eyes. Agonizing second by second, he kept on pushing, kept on moving. At last, he made it to the other building, and rolled onto the building, drenched in sweat and groaning in pain.

That left me, and not a moment too soon. The crashing, moaning racket from the stairs kept getting louder and louder. Swallowing back my worry, I crawled onto the ladder. The pack I wore, bulging with all of my supplies and much of Dave's, swung back and forth dangerously as I moved. Fifty pounds of gear is a lot to keep in control. A hell of a lot.

As I neared two thirds of the way across, James called out.

"Bloody hell! Get a move on! Mike! They're coming out the stairwell!"

Shit. I glanced behind me, and realized that the lead goner had indeed made it to the roof. The rotting body raised it's arms, showcasing disgusting, rotten slashes on either side of it's torso. Something, dog or other beast, had made their best attempt to chow down the corpse before it had risen again. I think I saw an intestine, half mangled, hanging out it's browning, disgusting button up shirt.

I looked back to my hands and prayed that the sweat coating them didn't kill me as sure as a goner's crushing bite. One hand in front of the other, I crawled up the ladder.

I was only feet away from the top edge when the moaner got to the ladder. And decided to keep going, stepping onto the bottom rungs itself.

The goner shambled another step onto the ladder. It tilted crazily, suddenly completely off balance. As it twisted I felt the huge weight of my backpack working against me, undeniably called by gravity toward the ground.

I was going over.

8/4 p4

11:40pm- continued.

The world tilted insanely, and I knew that this could be the end. The weight of the huge pack pulled my left side up. My left hand, slick with sweat, gave way, slipping completely loose of the rung. At that same time, the goner tipped sideways, it's legs caught in a rung, sending the whole ladder onto it's side. My body twisted along with it, and the world flipped a one-eighty.

I could feel, even as this happened, that my right hand wouldn't hold. Really, couldn't hold. The pack added a third to my body weight, and the sweat was like teflon on my hand, keeping any good grip from staying solid.

I knew it then. In my heart, even as I screamed, even as the ladder dumped me off it's side, that I was going to die. That this whole insane half baked plan would kill me. I flailed my left arm trying to get a balance, trying to assert control over my twisting body.

Oddly, my flailing fingers connected with something. Something solid.

That's when James, screaming just as loud as me, broke his way into my panicked thoughts.

"Grab the axe! Goddammit, Grab the bloody axe!"

And there it was, suddenly. My left hand mere inches from an axe. From James' axe, in fact, shaft down.

I grabbed it, pulling myself forward on it, even as the ladder began to twist again, falling away from the motel behind me. unexpectedly, my feet touched down onto solid stone as I pulled forward. The ledge! Keedy, and Lee Law had a ledge!

While James kept his grip on me, steadying me as I stood, I realized I might get out of this.

My feet steadied down onto the ledge, and I found myself blessedly, insanely, against all odds, still alive. Not a mangled heap on the sidewalk. Not dead.

Dave lowered his shotgun, sling hanging loose from one end. "tie your pack into the sling and let me pull it up, boy! Do it fast, 'fore you lose your balance!" A precarious, desperate minute later, I struggled out of the over stuffed pack and saw it slowly, painfully rise over the lip of the building.

Dave lowered the sling again and I tightened a loop against my right arm. The ax disappeared, and with much heaving and effort, James and the grizzled vet pulled me up over the edge.

We lay there, panting. We'd done it. We'd lived.

The moaners, suddenly unable to see us and with a gap so wide even their worm ridden brains registered it as impassable, lost interest. They milled around up top, spreading out and eventually losing the cohesion of a hunting mob.

We crawled, exhausted, to the far end of the long, rectangular building. There I lay now, the moans of the undead and brush of wind the only sound. We've survived.

Only six more blocks. Six blocks to the treatment plant. Six blocks to the end of this crazy adventure. Six blocks to ride to the rescue. Or die trying.

8/5 p1

8:34 am

This is it. Final stretch now. We make it or die in the next blocks.

We spent last night exhausted on top of the office building roof. Got about four hours of sleep before the sun rose. It burned my eyes and woke me to the aching of my shoulder, nearly torn out of it's socket. My eyes burned in their sockets, dry and painful. Not that anyone else was better off.

"Goddamn that crossbow. Goddamn that ladder. Goddamn them moaners. Goddamn." Dave muttered, in between pained grunts. The wound of his arm had bled through the bandage last night, dark brown caking the is rumpled green army jacket.

James groaned like a dying dog. "Dreamt I went to exams in my underwear. Then in the middle of explaining to the proctor, in exacting detail, why I'd done such a thing, he turned dead and chased me out the room. Guess my blasted nightmares can't keep up."

The old man grunted. "Jimmy, could you doctor up my arm over again?"

While James complained about how "Jimmy just isn't my name, I insist you stop calling me that," I tended to our breakfast. Turns out that my near brush with gravity had been more than near for much of our food. We still have clam chowder, dehydrated mashed potatoes and more Spam. Not bad, really, but not great.

Dave and James, still complaining about his grievous nickname, go for the clam chowder, which leaves me with spam and half a bottle of water.

Not as bad as it sounds when you're hungry.

Sporting a new bandage, the old man gets moving again. Amazing how unshakable that man is.

"Here's it all. Got six more blocks. Got my scattergun, lost half the shells. Chow supply's nixed. I'm only half a man with this taped up. Jim, you got that splitter still?"

By way of answer, James raised the smooth wood handle of his ax.

"And Mike, your bat still thumps like new."

I nod.

"We still got Molly's and flares, but down here we'd be dialing the reaper to use 'em. Too much that'll burn, no control. Aint an option. And we still have those six damn blocks."

We turn to our vantage point then. This area's business of various sorts. Travel bureau's close by, then some mixed offices and shops. A car dealership to the right of the street takes up two blocks, which ends off about where the waste treatment plant starts.

And of course, the moaners. They stand and sit throughout the streets, vacant and empty. More part of the burned up landscape than anything else. Many meander aimlessly, shuffling left and right with slow, unexcited steps.

James shakes his head. "How do you propose we make our way through them? Doesn't seem that they take kindly to our presence."

We mull that. Goners are bad news, worst part being when they see you. Then their rotten greeting tells everyone around them about you, and they mob you. That's when it gets desperate. So, the smart thing is to keep them from seeing you. In this situation, that gives us only one option.

James doesn't like it. "I understand your point, Mike. You're quite right. However, the problem is that just as much as they don't see us, we wouldn't see them. Electricity is on the fritz around here, in case you haven't noticed. Going through the buildings guarantees we find unpleasant surprises in the closet"

I lose it a little here. Quietly, but with real heat, I say "Damnit! I know. James, I _don't want to die_. We've scraped by the skin of our teeth too many times. Luck's not on our side every damn time. This. Is suicide. And I don't like suicide, because that involves me _dying._ We don't even know if your sister's alive. We don't know if we can even get into the damn building. All I know is that there are way more dead and gone then us. I'm along for this ride because you're the only damn living people who haven't shot at me. That's as far as it goes. So stop trying to get me fucking killed."

For all I can tell James wants to snap back, the old man gets in first. He's surprised. Guess he didn't know that I'm not a fan. "Shit, son. That's the only reason you're here? Can't wait to get outta the bush?"

I nod.

The aging vet sighs. Then he looks to James. "Not the time to argue. Mikey here's on the dime about getting in. We can't get them locals riled up, so we got to sneak in all quiet. If we want any sort of evac, this is the only way. No John Wayne, no guns blazing."

James obviously wants to argue. I think he's shocked that I haven't drunk the kool aid over his idiot plan. But he knows he can't get out of this. We distribute the rest of the goods, all the while discussing the details of our plan. James gets the rest of my meds, I take the bulky molotov cocktails, and Dave's pack gets the flares and the pittance of food we have.

And that's it. We're heading into the throat of the goners. And our only chance at living is to hope they don't realize.

8/5 p2

9:38pm

Excuse the blood on the page. Ah shit. Who am I kidding? No one's ever going to see these pages. Be dead long before that. Have to take more breaks than normal. The damn pain just won't go away.

So, how I got here. Let's see, last time I wrote it was our plan to go through the buildings to make it to the waste treatment center. I'll backtrack and give the lowdown.

We busted open the ceiling entrance to the office we were on top of. Guess that the law firm had been closed when the world went sideways. No one around, filing neatly stacked on the secretary's desk. Calm and peaceful.

"As if we were just janitors late to take out the trash." James said, whites of his eyes flitting back and forth between the offices.

Dave grunted and we kept on moving. The front door was locked on the outside, but opened noiselessly when the old man, careful of his wounded arm, gently tried it.

Before we'd hoofed it out Jimmy had tried to ask him if his left arm's uselessness would keep him from using his shotgun. He'd just glared at us, which I took to mean it wouldn't. Not sure how accurate he'll be, but I guess with buckshot it won't matter much. Good enough for horse shoes, hand grenades and crochety old veterans.

The rest of the building was locked up tight. Through carpeted hallways, past dying office plants, down darkened stairwells and out to the lobby. I took the lead through all this. Dave had always been point before this, but for obvious reasons, he believed it better to stay put in the back and watch our six. Jimmy still isn't much use in a fight, which leaves me.

The difference between point and follower wasn't real to me til then. When you're in charge of where everyone goes, it's up to you to stay hyper alert. To keep awares. To make the choice of left or right. In my mind, if anything goes wrong, the one at front's responsible. Which is why I feel so guilty about what happened next.

I decided to head across the alleyway. At that point, none of us dared talk. No conferencing here. Just thought and action. The coast appeared clear, and honestly, it was almost completely clear. Almost. One crawler was hidden by fallen garbage, but I doubt any of us would've seen it, even if we'd all rubbernecked for five minutes each. Least, that's what I keep telling myself.

We stepped out into open air and quietly, quickly ran to the side door of the office building next to us. The crawler wasn't even close to us. The garbage it lay in was over thirty feet from us, no way in hell it could've reached us.

But even as James closed the door to the side of the building, it had started up it's moaning and headed toward our door. My pulse quickened, and I looked at the other two. They knew what that meant. Moaning meant followers, followers meant a mob, and a mob meant that door was going down sooner or later.

Without a word, I turned and headed toward the opposite side of the building.

Four blocks to go. This set of offices and shops took up a full two blocks, which only left another two blocks to our destination. I remember thinking "I'll be damned if these offices are our Waterloo. No damn way."

As we moved, I picked up the pace. Caution thrown to the wind. We all knew that minutes from now this building would be mobbed by the dead. And none of us wanted to be there for that. As we passed from the office segment of this building into shops, I realized that our hallway was ending. We would need to step into the shops to keep moving forward. And shops mean windows.

Damnit.

We busted into the last store on the row. With my luck, of course I opened the door to a small shop filled with half a dozen moaners.

8/5 p3

9:38pm continued

My heart skipped a beat. This was it. Last stand. Six on one, zero room to swing, no room to shoot. Several were already mangled, arrmless- even one that had no head.

As I swung my bat, some small voice screamed out that this was all wrong. No head? That doesn't make any sense. These things are monsters, but monsters with a certain logic. No brain means no moaner. Always has. So how on God's green earth-

Bat met body, and rather than the solid, meaty impact I was used to, the moaner gave way with ease. Because, of course, it was no moaner. It was a damn mannican. A well dressed, dusty mannican.

I looked down at the destroyed remains of the plastic body stupidly. James had by then scooted into the cramped back room. "I always thought this fall's styles were rather vain. But I never felt that strongly about them."

I glared back at him. He returned the look, superior grin pasting his face.

"Har har. Get a move on." Dave said, speaking into our momentary pause.

I pulled my bat from the tangled mess of plastic and turned to the window. Could see three. One had already taken an interest in our commotion. The other two, closer to our destination, had yet to turn around.

Without a pause, I shot my directions to Dave and Jim. "I'll take Curious George. Dave, you've got the Ed on the left. Jim, the right."

The goner who'd seen us had mades it to the window by then. The glass must have been tinted, because it wasn't beating on the glass or speaking up yet. Must not have seen us at all yet.

For once, I would get a good jump on one.

I raised my bat high and took five charging steps to the window. The goner, formerly some Ralph Lauren sporting paper pusher, had within a foot of the window. Milky eyes stared into their own reflection, a senile sort of confusion marking it's face.

My bat hit the glass, shattering the pane. The Ash cylinder never swayed, force and fury caving in the goner's front skull with gorey fireworks.

I jumped out the glassy hole and stood next to the crumpled body, watching the far end of the street. Dave and James made quick work of the other two, blasting holes through heads and slicing directly through the neck.

Curious George had three friends I hadn't seen, scant yards away. One had clearly been involved in some sort of wreck, giving an enormous, mutilated wound through the chest that cut through to the shreds of it's lungs. It started up a moan, rattling and whooshing sickly.

Trying to get a jump on them, I took my bat to the first, breaking it's arm and sending it stumbling back. Mr. Windy closed in with the third goner, both reaching for me with gnarled claws. I swept my bat past their arms and connected with the third goner's shoulder. It spun away, thick brain unable to coordinate it's legs.

That gave me time to turn to the first and crrush the first's skull, twice dead. Which gave Mr. Windy a perfect chance to go for my back. First I knew of him his left arm had gripped my pack, vice-like, and pulled.

I stumbled back, totally off balance. Twisting out of the straps of my pack, I gave the grotesque goner a jab to the exposed ribs with my elbow. This gave me the chance I needed, and I sent my spiked stick around in a whirling hit to Windy's exposed lungs.

The damn goner didn't even flinch. I tried to pull my bat out, but the nails, so efficient for piercing thick bone, were fouled up inside the goner.

I panicked, know that no bat meant no defense, and no defense meant death.

When pulling didn't give me what I wanted, I decided to try the opposite. I slammed the bat forward with all my weight, pushing the vivisected moaner onto the ground. Boans cracked and the rotting cartilage of the rib cage gave way, allowing me to extract my grisly prize. Even with massive beating he'd taken, Windy kept right on snapping, chipped teeth still going for my warm flesh.

It was at that moment, standing over a dead body still fighting for devouring rights, that I realized two very important things.

First, Dave and James had already made a break for the plant, and were a good twenty five yards from me by now. Second, the undead had surrounded me.

The next moments don't make sense to me. I remember yelling- screaming, really- for them to stop, and swinging my bat again and again. Ash sending congealed blood flying, bones snapping like wet branches. It didn't take long for me to start running, complete and outright terror shooting through my legs. I pushed through the growing mob of goners. Suddenly, I was at the door of the car dealership, and like a flash, I broke the large showroom windows and headed in.

I climbed up to the glass and steel stair way to the second floor, which overlooks the entire forty yard showroom. Stress and overuse made my arms shake, and with the last of my strength, I shattered the top step. Built with clever interconnecting steel cables, this shock fractured the entire top third of the stairs. When the dead poured into the room and tried to make it up the stairs, many more shattered, effectively saving me from the mob.

And that is where I sit, five hours later. The moans of the dead echo through this damned glass room, unending and hungry. I'm stuck in a room filled with over one hundred goners, that tantalizing carrot dangling just inches above their reaching hands.

And that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the blood smearing this page isn't the blood of Mr. Windy, or any other goner. It's my blood. And it's coming from a long gash down my right arm, a gash that was exposed to Mr. Windy's congealed brain matter and the rotting blood of ten other goners besides.

I know it. I can feel it.

I'm infected.

8/6 p1

9:32 am

My arm's completely numb now. Not sure if that's how it starts, but it's true for me. I can't help but wonder if this is how Rob felt when he was dragged under that mass of bodies. My old damn roommate had it worse, surely. All those gnashing teeth and pulling fingers. Probably didn't even have a chance to turn. Probably just died, flat out.

I can see movement at the treatment plant. They don't have a chance with this many goners out their front door. Not one iota. I can tell one is Dave. The skinny one next to him must be James. So the other two must be other survivors. One is blonde. Can't tell from this distance, but I bet she has the cutest dimples in the entire county.

So, if anyone ever reads this, know that what I do is for them. And especially for those dimples.

8/6 p2

3:30 pm

It was chaos. No one knew what to do. Marcus had just let my brother and the other man in through the chainlink fence. One moment, we were standing on the east catwalk of the main building, arguing about what to do for the one stranded outside, and the next, a horrible caterwauling starts up. It's louder than the moans of those hundreds of dead bodies down there. James, hands to his ears, shouts "What the _bleeding hell_ is that infernal noise?"

No one knows, but we needn't wonder for long. The wail doubles, and this time we see the lights and blinking of an exotic convertible to go along with it.

The undead crowd surges to the side of the building, crowding around the cars, and a figure takes it's chance to jump down. It lands badly, and I imagine I can hear a scream of pain. The figure clutches it's left knee, but stands regardless. It pulls something from a bag and hurls it at a Porsche Boxter, then hobbles out the door. The crowd of dead bodies are going crazy by now. They've completely forgotten the man.

By now he's running, pain mangling every other step. He pulls a third item from his pack and tosses it at a Lamborghini, which joins the yowling chorus.

Within twenty feet of the the razor wire and chainlink fence, he starts waving crazily, trying to tell us something. The army veteran takes charge. He hollers at the figure, who calls back. Finally, they come to an understanding. Through the noise, I realize what they're talking about.

"...Only way! No other damn way to light them!" the man below bellows.

The veteran shakes his head violently. "Can't do that. We'll find another way to get them off our ba-"

The man cuts him off, screaming in desperation. "I"m all used up, Dave! Running on empty here. Blurry vision, numbness, all of it. I'll be one of them soon enough. Just give them to me! Let me doing something useful before I go."

The veteran opens his mouth to respond, but my brother puts his hand on the old man's arm. He speaks in the veteran's ear. Slowly, Dave nods. He pulls from his pack several red tubes and tosses them down. In exchange, the man throws a bundle up to the veteran.

The man below nods at us, then hobbles back toward the mass of bodies. The crowd of dead, which must include every single damn rotter in the area around us, hardly take notice of him as he approaches. He hobbles toward each car he broke the molotov cocktails on, pausing to light each one on fire. I realize they must be flares.

As each car lights, along with the rotters around it, the leading edge of the crowd turns to him. He raises the final flare, lit, in his hand. The first rotter shambles into reach, and the man smashes the last molotov cocktail at his feet.

The entire area burned for hours. And every single moaning body with it.

James tells me that he'd want someone to record the story. His name was Mike Dewitt, and he died to save us.

My name is Elizabeth Matteson. I will carry his story. And I will survive.

Taking a break

Hey all! I hope you enjoyed the story. Please post any comments you have about the story!

It was A LOT of fun writing. Thanks so much for reading it!


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